


Storytime

by montgomeryscott



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Good Parent Din Djarin, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/montgomeryscott/pseuds/montgomeryscott
Summary: During the long flight to Corvus, Mando comes up with a way to keep the child entertained.(Slight spoilers for season 2 episode 3, nothing crazy)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	Storytime

The journey to Corvus was shaping up to be a long one and the child was already getting antsy. It didn’t start off too bad; for a while Din was able to just give him something to fiddle with while he worked on minor repairs, but it was starting to get kind of annoying. 

“Look, kid, I’m just as bored as you are. I don’t know what you want me to do.” The child kept attempting to get Din’s attention, making little noises and pulling on his leg. When Din tried giving him his favorite ‘toy’, the little metal ball that came off one of the ship’s applications, the child smacked it out of his hand.

“Wha- hey! Excuse you,” Shaking his head, Mando walked over to where the ball had rolled and picked it up, “Can you please just, I don’t know, take a nap? Find something to mess with? If you keep acting like this we’re both gonna drive each other nuts.”

Thinking his point had gone across, Din went back to what he was doing, only to be interrupted two seconds later by a loud clanging. When he looked around he saw the kid banging two pieces of scrap metal together, even having the audacity to look at Din while he did it.

“Okay, okay! Stop it,” Mando took away the scrap metal and paced the hull for a moment, trying to think of something he could do to sedate the child. As he looked around the room his eyes landed on a small electric torch.

He had an idea.

The child watched as Din scrambled around the hull, cocking his little head in what Din assumed was either interest or confusion. He seemed to be calming down at the prospect of entertainment, which Din thanked the stars for. 

“Alright,” the Mandalorian said after completing his setup, sitting the child against the crate the torch was resting on, “I’m going to tell you a story.”

He reached behind the child and turned on the torch, bathing himself and the wall behind him in soft yellow light.

“It all started with…”

Dank farrik, what did it start with? Din had been so busy figuring out how to put on a show for the kid that he hadn’t even thought of a story to go along with it. 

The child blinked at Din.

“... a child.” 

Din looked down at his hands, fumbling for a moment before lacing his fingers together in a seemingly random way. When he seemed satisfied he turned to the side and extended his arms so his hands were in front of the light. 

Cast on the wall was the shadow of a small figure with long, pointy ears. 

“This child was like none other in the world, in the system, perhaps in the entire galaxy… he was alone.” Din shifted his fingers, causing the shadow’s ears to droop. When he looked back at the kid he saw his ears were drooping too.

“He searched and searched, um, high and low,” Not wanting to make the kid sad, Din lightly bounced his hands, making it look like the shadow was waddling around and looking for something, “For a, uh, a friend. Yeah, a friend.”

The child leaned forward slightly, as if to ask, ‘What happened next?’

“Although the child never found anybody, one day,” Mando changed his hands, “Somebody found him.” The shadow was now bigger, showing a tall feature-less man looking down at the spot the shadow-child was before. He was slightly disappointed that he couldn’t more clearly depict that it was him, but he hoped the kid got the point nonetheless. 

“The child was found by a Ma- by a, uh, knight.” Although Din had no idea if the kid was even comprehending what the story was about, he still opted to make it more fantastical and less obvious. “The knight swore to protect the child and bring him to his people. And thus, their journey began.”

Din continued, describing their adventures since they met. The child gasped as Din shaped larger creatures like the mudhorn, the AT-ST, and the krayt dragon, even shivering a little bit as little shadow-spiders scuttled across the wall. He giggled whenever Mando attempted to impersonate somebody, especially when he tried to put on an accent as Xi’an. Din found himself getting lost in the story he was weaving, laughing along at points and having a surprisingly good time.

Before long the story was over, but when Din looked back at the kid he could tell he wanted more. Rather than making another story, Din opted to just make as many creatures as he could and see which ones the child liked best. The two went on like that for a good while, only stopping when the child plopped down from exhaustion after chasing around a shadow butterfly.

“Alright, I think that was enough for today,” Mando chuckled, scooping him from the floor. The child sighed and blinked up at him as he was carried to his makeshift hammock. “We can do this again tomorrow, if you want.” 

The kid yawned and nestled into the blankets, and after his eyes drifted closed he was out like a light. Mando gave himself a mental pat on the back for this accomplishment; usually he had to fight tooth and nail to get him to go to sleep.

As he himself climbed into his small bed, Din allowed a little retrospect. Did the kid understand the story? Understand what he was trying to say? Or did he just enjoy the moving shadows, how they changed size and shape? He knew the child was just that, a child, not really capable of understanding complex subjects. But he wasn’t like other children. He had a silent wisdom that sometimes, to Din, seemed ancient. 

Din allowed himself a moment of sleepy amusement at the thought of such an ancient soul being so amused by shadow puppets before he, too, quickly slipped into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry if the story seems janky at points, I got exhausted in the middle of writing this so I know certain parts are kinda weak.  
> (I have no experience with shadow-puppets so if you're a shadow-puppet master who's deeply offended by my inaccurate descriptions, I sincerely apologize.)


End file.
